The Hand Of Death
by Sage of Eyes
Summary: The story of a man who sought revenge, and turned a boy into a killer. Not for the weak hearted. Seriously, the bad guy kinda wins most of the fic. Empty stomach encouraged. Oneshot.


The Hand Of Death.

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Disclaimer: No monetary gain.

…

"You're supposed to be dead…"

I didn't know what my new ally was talking about, but I was more than able to pick up the trace of anxiety within it. The figure clad in a brown suit looked like an average salary-man, if discounting the more exotic of his features. The gold eye, and the pulled back red hair were exotic, but what made the man before me stand out was the gigantic scar that clasped against his face from neck to forehead and the circular scar above his left eye. His left face was almost entirely covered with the scar, and some sort of patch covered his left socket without the need for straps.

"Well it seems that two supposedly dead people are meeting." The redheaded man's lip twitched upward on his right side, I still couldn't tell if he was joking or simply stating a fact. "The Queen saw fit to scavenge my body, and lo miracle of miracles my body restarted mere days after our failing excursion."

He pulled up a gloved hand, and examined the back of it as if it were some sort of puzzle. His eyes narrowed before he swiftly plucked the Ethelite out of his skin.

My companion immediately threw the bangle that stored her Ethelite onto the floor, her face was flushed with panic as the stranger gave a small chuckle.

Then as I blinked he was no longer there, but next to Eltnam tussling my companion's hair playfully. My eyes couldn't even keep up with him movement, and not a single strand of hair was out of place from what should have been a ridiculously fast acceleration. I considered teleportation, but that would have made this man some sort of devoted magic user, and he gave off the aura of a man born and bred for battle too much for that.

"Ethelite works both ways, Eltnam." The ridiculously tall man, I noticed as he stood right next to us for the first time that he must have been Nvsqr's height at the very least. "The ease of how I could have ended your pain at that moment is the same as have right now."

At that horrifying sentence I realized that my companion was literally shaking underneath the man's hand, her throat constricted as though she was about to scream and her eyes wide in terror.

I pulled out my knife and made to cut the man's arm off.

Next thing I knew I was on the ground, my own cutter cutting into my leg.

Then I realized that I couldn't move my body.

"Eight of ten for effort but I won't be having none of that, young man." The man stated simply, I saw something float from the ground like a liquid snake, before suddenly coalescing into a ball within his outstretched hand. He lifted his other hand from my companion's head, a gesture to stay still closely followed as he squatted a mere foot from my face. "Since you charged at me, you probably don't know who I am."

His lips curled into a lopsided smile, but even without the scar I felt a ball of terror well up within me. The entire situation was as if I was facing Nvsqr once more, but without any advantages to level the playing field this time.

"My name," He paused for a second, before his smile widened and his remaining eye seemed to brim with warmth. "Is Emiya Shirou," His right arm, which had been rested on his knee, blurred for the merest of moments before the glove disappeared and my cutter was within a hand a red as blood.

"I am what waits for all the enemies of man."

He dropped my cutter and touched my forehead, my vision stopped, my breath stopped, I felt nothing.

I was dead.

Then in the end of what seemed to be eternity his red hand retreated from my forehead, I was standing once more all my senses returned with my cutter in my pocket. His hand was gloved and his face was covered by a large smile. I noticed that we were now within a warehouse, rather that within an alley, I heard the sound of tankers outside as they shifted waves beneath their massive prows.

Sion looked just as shaken as myself, but she seemed to take comfort in the fact that we were on opposite sides of the large abandoned structure.

"Now." He let himself fall onto the floor, crossing his legs. "Explain yourselves."

…

I stirred I could not place the odd sensation that buzzed continuously in the back of my brain, but I could not remember where I was or where I had been. I tried to get up from my sitting position, but chains held me down.

"Our guest awakens." A wispy voice emanated from the darkness outside. He hadn't addressed me, there was another person with him. "Emiya," The bitterness in his voice was palpable, I could not help but wonder how he knew my name. "Do you know why you are here?"

I tried to respond, but I realized I could not speak as my tongue seemed to be glued to the roof of my mouth. Silence reigned, and I heard a beep and a sigh of relief for the merest of seconds before the voice spoke sharply.

"Take off the nerve nullifiers," The voice seemed to luxuriate with purpose as the words were uttered. "Let him feel and speak once more."

Something detached from my neck, and as I regained control over my body I could only scream.

My back felt as if it was covered in molted steel, circuits that I had not created seemed to pulsate within my back with heat and energy. The better part of my back felt as if I had dozens of superheated pokers pressed against it.

"Your father can longer protect you, Son of Emiya Kiritsugu." The voice hissed when my throat refused to utter another monosyllabic cry of pain. He groaned in pain before another beep brought another sigh. "You will suffer for what he has done to my family, and myself."

"I will make you suffer as I have suffered all these years, due to your departed father's actions." A whirring sound that I recognized as an electronic motor slowly moved forward, and my eyes picked up the form of a man in a wheelchair with at least a dozen machined attended by no less than four men trailed behind him. The bib over his suit was soaked in blood, which continuously dripped from his lip.

"Hand me the gun." He stated softly, and a masked man appeared by his side with an open case. He hefted a gun that was larger than my forearm with one frail hand, covered in liver spots and IV Tubes.

"Your recently deceased father," He gestured at his body with the gun, I wondered what he meant by recent as my father died in his sleep almost two years ago. "Turned me into this with a single bullet from this gun." His eyes gained a fire that I could only describe as manic. "This thrice blasted weapon, unfit for the hands of the lowliest magi turned me, the man who could have lived forever, to the man who struggles to see the dawn every day!"

His voice gained a crazed edge, fear welled up within me as he pressed the barrel right against my temple.

"I planned to kill you, to place your own father's bones thorugh your skull."

His wrinkled face curled into an expression of extreme, delusional loathing. He screwed the barrel into my forehead until I felt drips of my own blood dripping down, when I felt the first drop his face seemed euphoric and he drilled the barrel into my flesh until I could feel it grinding at bone instead of skin.

"But." He whispered, "That would be far too easy." He took the barrel from my forehead and it was swiftly taken from his hand and replaced with a scalpel.

He pressed stabbed through my right eye, and I screamed once more as hacking laughter echoed from his lungs and through the rooms. Dozens of beeps occurred during his fit of adulation, and the men behind him busied themselves to ridiculous extremes.

But I could only busy myself with the immense pain shocking me through my eye. Once he recovered from his fit he twisted the knife and pulled savagely with glee.

Something snapped and pain flowered through my entire mind as something dangled against my ever-open eyelid and slapped against my cheek.

He threw away the instrument, before gesturing for another.

It was a glove, glowing faintly with energy.

Then fire raged across my face, I continued to scream as yelled adulations as to why I didn't want him to save my own life.

"You deserve this all!" He screamed, one of the men attempted to restrain him but he swatted the offending hand away with the now-bloody glove. "My actions were never extreme enough to warrant the deaths of my wife and children, but your father did so upon the mere chance they would follow the path to avenge me!"

Spittle splattered against my face and he suddenly convulsed, dozens of beeps echoed through the room as one of the men quickly applied medication directly into his neck with a needle. He leaned against his wheelchair with exhaustion clearly on his features.

I attempted to speak if only ask for my death, but my mouth refused to speak the entirety of my face burned just like my back.

Then the words I wished for suddenly issued from his mouth.

"Return the weapon to me." He whispered, and immediately a servant returned with the box and weapon contained within. It shook in his hand this time, but he pressed it weakly against my forehead.

His eyes met mine.

"Prepare yourself for the destruction of your very being, son of Emiya."

And then, just as I had all but accepted my death…

I wished for the very first time in my life that I would live.

Then like a flood, the will to fight this man for my own life burst into my mind.

I enacted one of the two magics I knew, Structural Analysis, on the gun. I wanted to see its makeup and destroy the trigger, I was suitably dismayed when it revealed itself to be so well maintained I could not hope to damage it quickly enough.

But I underestimated the power of my circuits, the power that I utilized was too much for a mere scan of a weapon. The surge travelled through his arm and my enemies entire, frail body. His very being was laid out before me.

I felt only pity for a moment, before I gambled with my life for the very first time.

Wrong reinforcement, my father had told me, could easily kill a man in thousands of ways. All that it required was too much energy in a single place to create massive internal hemorrhaging and swift death. The frail excuse of a human being before me was filled to the brim with chemicals and his heart strained at every half-beat.

I poured as much energy as could through the gun that linked us, diverting it all into a single place.

I had wished to merely give him an aneurism, to rupture the dozens of blood vessel and cause him to become a vegetable.

I never expected his entire cranium to explode, sending bits and pieces of reinforced bone flying into the men behind him and beside him. They crumpled as bone sliced through their stomachs, the temple had not ruptured and I lived simply because it had withstood the massive overload of energy.

The chains went limp and vanished, releasing my nude form, my feet touched the bloody ground and I could not help but dry heave onto the blood soaked floor before scrambling to seek aid.

I never looked back.

…


End file.
